Up Close: Jim Monahan, owner of Monahan & Associates and West Bottoms aficionado

Jim Monahan runs his commercial real estate business, Monahan & Associates, which primarily leases space in the 16 buildings he owns in the West Bottoms. Monahan, it turns out, has been running businesses since his early 20s to get him through college. Here’s the tale of how singing got him out of a job with the airlines and made him an entrepreneur ever since.

On how he arrived in Kansas City and the West Bottoms:

I came here back in 1988 and I started out in residential real estate. At that time, interest rates were really out of sight, and nobody was doing much of anything. So I kind of regrouped and went into the commercial side of it.

In between that, I had a vending company that I started. I went to an auction where Pepsi-Cola was shutting down a warehouse, and they were selling a lot of vending machines, and I bought 25 of them and set them out in a lot of different places and just ran a little vending company to make ends meet and not to have to dip into my savings, and it developed into a larger vending company with 350 machines out.

I needed to find a place to house the vending company, and I discovered a fire station in the West Bottoms that was in need of repair, and since my family has always been in real estate ... my dad and stepfather told me, “You ought to buy the fire station and fix it up and lease out spaces and put your vending company in there.” Then other old-timers who had been in the West Bottoms for years thought I was kind of a live one, and they wanted to see if I would buy their buildings as well. And I started accumulating buildings little by little, and I’d fix them up and re-lease them to small companies like myself. I found there was kind of a niche. There was a need for not a huge warehouse, but a small space but so you would have a professional look.

On starting a singing telegram business to get through college:

I did that when I went to college. When I was in junior college, I started out working with the airlines. I got into a car accident, and it put me out of my classes for that fall semester, but I was still working for the airlines at night. I was watching television, and I saw a guy in San Francisco, he was doing singing telegrams and was dressed up in a bellhop kind of uniform and went out and sang for birthdays and anniversaries and that sort of thing, and I thought that was really easy and something I could do. So I went ahead and went up to my old high school and went into the attic and they had all the 1960s (marching band) uniforms. ... They were in perfect condition. So I got the big huge band major hat and went out and sang for birthdays and anniversaries and congratulations, and I discovered I was making about $50 for about three minutes of my time singing “Happy Birthday” compared to making $12 an hour with the airlines. So my career with the airlines was short-lived.

The singing telegram business took off, and we not only did that, but booked bands for concerts and all kinds of entertainment. We had six offices in Dallas, Fort Worth, Tulsa, Oklahoma City and Kansas City — we had one down at the Ranchmart in Leawood — and in St. Louis. That lasted for a while, and the economy kind of waned so we decided ... to shut down, and I finished college and ended up out here.

On his local real estate business:

I’m leasing, mainly. I think real estate is a good investment, opposed to other investments. It’s something you can hold on to. It’s tangible. I didn’t like the stock market too well, especially after the tech bust. I enjoy real estate, I enjoy small business, people trying to get a start and do something on their own. I enjoy that. It’s fun and fulfilling. I like the area in the West Bottoms. You’re getting a lot of entrepreneurial people down there, galleries and artists and so forth, and it’s getting more interesting day by day. I thought it would have happened a long time ago, but it seems to be exploding right now.

On the West Bottoms climate:

I don’t think the people like the commercialization of some of the areas Downtown, like the Crossroads are becoming a little more commercialized than some of the art people like, and it’s of course a lot more expensive. So people have been coming on down to the West Bottoms for better lease rates as well as a unique atmosphere.

On misconceptions of the West Bottoms:

It’s where the whole city was founded. The city grew up around the West Bottoms, and they used to have fur trappers on the Kaw and Missouri River originally from France. ... It has all kinds of reputations. It had the stockyards for a long time, and people associated it with the stockyards, and those are kind of gone. You have the haunted house season, but it’s a lot more than that. I think it’s just a really unique area. It’s a piece of the country right Downtown where you can go and park and not worry about finding a space, and it’s very conducive to small, entrepreneurial businesses.

On what’s needed in the West Bottoms:

I think we need to figure out what they’re doing to do with Kemper Arena. I think it’s a shame to tear it down. I think it has usefulness. It’s an 18,000-seat arena they could utilize for secondary concerts and that sort of thing. I believe once the Sprint Center gets a professional team they will have a need for that.

On the proposal to replace Kemper with a stockyard and agricultural development:

That wouldn’t be my choice. I think anything is better than nothing. With all the money they put into Kemper Arena, I would hate to see them just tear it down and replace a perfectly viable arena with something a third its size. I just think it would be a waste of money.

On his hobbies:

I like to travel. I’ve been to Europe several times. I go to Hawaii once a year. It’s a relaxing vacation, while going to Europe, it’s more of a sightseeing tour, kind of on-the-go vacation.

On whether he still sings:

No, I sing in church once in a while. The singing telegram business is long gone, but it was a fun thing to do while you were 20.

JIM MONAHAN

Title: Owner, Monahan & Associates Description: Commercial real estate business primarily based in the West Bottoms Education: University of Oklahoma, 1988 From: Chicago